South Asia Daily

Cox, Pauli, exclusion and universe

‘Circle’ by Mayank Chhaya

Having dabbled in physics, especially quantum physics, since I was in my late teens, it is unsettling that I comprehend it progressively less with every passing year.

My painting above illustrates the way I feel about quantum physics. As you can see it is predominantly dark. The red ring with dark zebra stripes represents a heightened sense of comprehension (or at any rate what I thought was comprehension) for a period of time, while the inner white ring shows fading comprehension that eventually merges into the dark center again. (Where else but here would you find a phony painter and physicist merging the two and offering a convoluted explanation?)

Two disparate experiences have triggered this post. I have just begun to read again the 1916 book ‘Relativity: The Special and the General Relativity” by Albert Einstein to see one more time if I can get a handle on something most people talk about knowledgeably without having the faintest idea about it. The other is this brief clip by particle physicist Brian Cox whose basic plot suggests that everything is connected.

In both cases, I understand every single word that is being said by Einstein and Cox and yet fail to make sense out of them at the end. It goes without saying that the failure speaks entirely to my own intellectual inadequacy rather than Einstein’s or Cox’s ability to explain concepts.

I would not assail you with Relativity but would like to say a thing or two about Cox’s bit. What is particularly striking is his assertion that when he rubs the diamond between his palms and agitates the electrons,  “every electron around every atom in the universe must be shifted as I heat the diamond up to make sure that none of them end up in the same energy level. When I heat this diamond up all the electrons across the universe instantly but imperceptibly change their energy levels.”

For those of you so inclined, Cox is illustrating the Pauli Exclusion Principle which essentially says no two identical particles, electrons for instance, can be at the same energy level. It is a different quantum state for each. (I hope I did not maul it while trying to simplify it). With that as the backdrop the point that Cox is making is that what he does with the diamond by heating it up has consequences across the universe, every electron around every atom must shift in order to accommodate the change in energy levels caused by his action.

There is something profoundly moving about the realization that everything we do, including the hammering away of my keyboard, has caused the electrons around the universe to shift a bit in order to adjust to the changing energy levels to conform to the Pauli Exclusion Principle. You get the sense from Cox that any action causes an instantaneous shift across the universe, which from my less than miniscule understanding of the subject sounds too glib. And here is why.

Sean Carroll, who is Senior Research Associate in the Department of Physics at the California Institute of Technology, makes a detailed and and fascinating counter to Cox’s assertion in Discover here. “At face value, there’s no question that what he says here lies somewhere between misleading and wrong,” Carroll writes.

For the universal shift to be instantaneous the effect of any action has to travel much faster than the speed of light, which we know at this stage does not happen according to Einstein. (See how I completed the circle by connecting it back to Einstein? Simply brilliant.) Incidentally, that bit I figured out on my own before reading Carroll’s counter.

Apart from everything else, I am also interested in how captivated people feel when Cox speaks. If you want evidence, see the montage below of audience members and their reactions. They all look as if they are trying hard not to get overwhelmed by a revelation of nirvanic proportions, particularly the two on the either end of the strip. (I am overstating it for effect).

P.S.: Phew! All this on a Sunday morning.

P.P.S.: Every time I see Brian Cox, I think Dorian Gray (as in Oscar Wilde’s novel).

Indian government "has not taken any position on homosexuality”

How can a top government lawyer appear before a country’s highest court and take a position directly contrary to the government? That is precisely what happened in New Delhi when Additional solicitor-general P P Malhotra, representing India’s home ministry, appeared before the Supreme Court on Thursday and argued that the ban on homosexuality be maintained even as he described gay sex as “immoral” and purveyor of disease.

Malhotra was quoted as saying, "gay sex is highly immoral and against social order and there is high chance of spreading of diseases through such acts."  Malhotra’s contention came during the hearing of petitions that call for a reversal of a July, 2009 by the Delhi high court which struck down a 149-year-old British law that holds that homosexuality is “against the order of nature.”

Soon afterward, Malhotra’s bosses in the home ministry issued a statement saying that the government had decided not to challenge the 2009 high court order. The government said it "has not taken any position on homosexuality". The 2009 ruling set off a wave of jubilation among gays and gay rights groups who saw in it India finally casting off a colonial-era anachronism. However, it was greeted by religious and other conservative groups with outrage, some of which translated into the ruling being challenged before the Supreme Court.

It is baffling how Malhotra took a position that the government implies it had no intention of taking. Some news reports speculated that he inadvertently read from an old statement, which is understandable because India has inadvertently retained a repugnant century and half-old law. It is a simple case of every government and parliament since 1947 having forgotten to strike if off the statute books. There is nothing egregious about it other than the fact that you could end up in the slammer for at least a decade because gay sex is a criminal offence under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

When the high court gave its ruling in July, 2009, I wrote the following. It bears repeating because it saves me some time on a Saturday morning.

A 149-year-old British law that should have been retired with contempt when India became a free nation in 1947 is being finally laid to rest. The Delhi High Court's seminal judgment that Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which criminalized homosexuality, is "unconstitutional and arbitrary" is a coming of age moment for Indian society.

The IPC section, which the colonial British rulers left behind as one of their many legacies, ensured that the gay community, which is sizable by any measure, lived in fear forever. It is extraordinary that successive governments and 14 parliaments since 1947 cavalierly disregarded the existence on India's statute books a law that was breathtaking in its regressive and medieval thinking. It is not surprising that a high court has reversed this travesty. It is surprising that any Indian court took so long to reject what was a flagrant violation of fundamental human rights.

Since the debate goes to the very heart of individual rights and freedoms I am not one bit surprised that all major religious groups have their underwear bunched up in rage. Many Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Christian groups are outraged at the court's ruling. Since so many competing faiths are outraged one must conclude that the high court has taken an enlightened position on the matter. If "god" has a problem with homosexuality, as the custodians of these faiths claim, then "god" can take a deep breath and bear it. Or better still "god" can go to a different universe.

With the trend set in motion by a high court, India needs to urgently settle this issue once and for all at political, cultural and social levels and make the gay community an intrinsic part of the country's fabric. Let the gays love, marry, squabble, divorce, whatever the way the straight do. I have a vested interest in it because I want those who have made careers out of their sexual preferences to find a more constructive vocation.

A short take on Iran and Pakistan

One little examined aspect of a Shia Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons (notwithstanding its protestations to the contrary) is how it is at least partly motivated by its nuclear armed, predominantly Sunni neighbor to the east, Pakistan.

It is unclear to what extent the two have cooperated on nuclear matters in the past. There have been some hints of elements in the Pakistan establishment helping Iran in its nuclear quest, particularly its nuclear scientists led by Abdul Qadeer Khan. However, as has been its wont in other strategic matters, Pakistan has hedged its nuclear bets between the United States on the one hand and Iran on the other.

Although I have no official comment or insider knowledge to make this assertion, it seems logical that Iran, being the most consequential Shiite nation, would consider it necessary to give its war machine a nuclear edge. Working behind that consideration ought to be the awareness that in the end Pakistan would feel a greater pull towards a staunchly Sunni Saudi Arabia than Iran. Tehran ought to be mindful of that religio-cultural affinity.

That said I doubt whether either Iran or Pakistan can afford to fully cast themselves on the two sides of the Sunni-Shia divide because both often feel isolated and may find it strategically wise to keep the option of cooperation open. That the two share a 566 mile (about 915 kilometers) border, which from Pakistan’s standpoint is particularly crucial populated as it is by the Balochi nationalists, is certainly a significant factor here.

Given the entire region’s millennial historic links, it is hard to imagine any one member of that area decisively cutting ties with the rest. By its very nature the region demands that the nation-states there make constant adjustments. At the same time though regional domination is a natural instinct, both for Pakistan with the world’s largest Sunni population and Iran with the largest Shia population.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was recently in Pakistan to meet the latter’s President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Reza Gilani as well as Afghan President Hamid Karzai.They did discuss cooperation possibilities between their three countries, something the US must have noted considering its plan to draw down its military involvement in Afghanistan. Incidentally, Zardari is Shia, not that it has a direct bearing on his political or strategic conduct but somewhere along the line it may inform it.

On a side note, I am sure Pakistan has been tracking a recent upswing in trade ties between Iran and Pakistan, particularly in the context of New Delhi’s oil imports and its decision to pay for a substantial part of it (40%) in the rupees to get around tightening international sanctions against Tehran. No one should be surprised if the Pakistani establishment was not particularly happy about this development.  But the Pakistanis would do well to remember that economic compulsions will always trump everything else. At this stage, Iran desperately needs to keep its trade alive, even if it means accepting the rupee and some measure of barter.

Romney’s Seinfeld sacrilege

The heartbreak moment in the 250 billionth Republican presidential debate on CNN last night came almost as soon it began. Mitt Romney quoted George Costanza. If there was any hope of my supporting Romney, it was destroyed when he made Costanza sound unfunny.

If Rick Santorum wants to know what true sacrilege is, it was committed right next to him about four feet away by his fellow candidate.

To my readers in Esfahan, Iran, Ankara, Turkey, Prague, the Czech Republic, and Castrop-rauxel, Germany, who visit this blog in search of Savita Bhabhi’s boobs, I know the references above are too complex, but I will have you know sirs that I am by disposition a serious journalist. So please go without fondling Savita Bhabhi’s boobs for once.

It was bad enough that Romney quoted Costanza in such a labored fashion. He made it worse by doing so in the presence of three men, namely Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum, who were probably mumbling under their breath, “Costanza? Who is that? Is he running for president here? Is he an illegal alien who practices contraception?”

Here is the Costanza clip that I refer to. The compilation is a bit haphazard but I hope you do get the sense, which is that for true showmanship it is always best to leave or end when the applause is at its peak.

Romney, who has struggled to strike a chord with the Republican primary voters, has tried everything—he has tried singing, being folksy, personable, one of the hoi polloi, charming, and now, even funny. None of that seems to be working for Romney as is evident in the rise of Santorum, whom many consider to be too ahead of the 13th century he lives in.

Even I, who would not fit the definition of an American from any angle and by any yardstick, could cite a Seinfeld episode and get a laugh or two out of a fully American audience. To think that Romney cannot even manage that much says something about his disconnection from the rest.

A wand in the vagina

The Republican Party does not want government to go anal-probing  corporations wanting to reduce unwanted employees but has no problem vaginal-probing women wanting to reduce unwanted pregnancies.

The Virginia State Legislature recently passed a bill that requires women seeking abortion to have a mandatory transvaginal procedure. What the procedure entails is insertion of a probe into the vagina or, as Maureen Dowd of the New York Times describes it, “a wand being inserted into the vagina”. The instrument then probes the vagina to capture an ultrasound image of the fetus.

The law is meant for women during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, a period during which 80% of the termination occurs.The idea apparently is to so emotionally disturb abortion seeking women with the heartbeat and image of the fetus that they would decide against it. Once the probe is carried out the women will have to wait for 24 hours to consider their decision.

The opponents of the law have described it as “state-sponsored rape” and it is hard to challenge the characterization.

It is extraordinary how male-heavy legislating and legislative debate have been in America in recent weeks, including on the question of contraception. It is almost as if women are incidental to decisions which have a direct and visceral impact on them. If you took away all the identifiers from these debates, including their geographical locations and names of the people engaging in it, you might think the whole action may be taking place in a Taliban-ruled territory in the 14th century or, as they say in Afghanistan, modern times.

More than the fact that the Virginia bill was passed, which in the end is merely a function of legislative numbers, I find it disturbing that such a bill was conceived at all. If only there was some way of probing lawmakers conceiving such medieval non-sense. The mindset is medieval but the technology is the 21st century.

The bill now awaits signature by Virginia’s Republican Governor Bob McDonnell, a man seen by many as a potential vice-presidential mate in case Mitt Romney is nominated for president.

Far be it for me to pare the complex debate down to street-level catchphrases but what this is telling me is that the Republicans are essentially saying, “Profit and procreate as much as you can.”

P.S.: I can see how the transvaginal procedure is so fraught with some pretty risqué humor but far be it for me to indulge in it.

Jasmine with attitude

My rendering of the arctic flower, the narrow-leafed campion, reportedly revived by Russian scientists from 32000-year-old tissue frozen in Siberia

They look like jasmines with attitude. What they actually are are the arctic flower that are in bloom on the narrow-leafed campion revived by a team of Russian scientists from tissue frozen for 32,000 years in the Siberian permafrost.

There are certain news stories that you know would score globally. The regeneration of this particular variety of the campion, supposed to have been dead for 320 centuries is one such story. I can see wire service editors going, “This is a global hit.” It has been published across the world. And the way the flower looks has surely contributed to it wide use.

Most flowers are pretty because that’s their purpose. Their purpose is to lure as part of the cycle of pollination. But some flowers take it to a new height, like jasmines or the one here. If you were not told about this flower’s antiquity, you would never have guessed.

Since I have no access to the actual picture provided by Svetlana Yashina of the Institute of Cell Biophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who led the regeneration experiment, I have drawn it from the photograph.

Resurrection of extinct flora and fauna using well preserved tissue has been in the realm of scientific possibility for sometime now. That the dinosaur or the wooly mammoth may walk the earth again has for long been a matter of human fascination.

Claims of such regeneration do not have a happy history since many of them have turned out to have been later discredited. In this particular case though, we may be on much stronger ground because of the improved radiocarbon dating technology.

As if the story of a flower reblossoming after 32000 years is not terrific enough, it has an equally compelling back story. The plant has been revived from the fruit of the flower apparently burrowed away by a squirrel in a fantasy reminiscent of ‘The Ice Age’ movies.

The claim by Yashina and her team is being viewed with considerable skepticism by some fellow scientists who think that it is extremely hard to germinate seeds of much recent antiquity and under more favorable conditions.

While scientists go about determining whether this is indeed the discovery it promises to be, those of us who just hover around on the periphery of science can delude ourselves for a while.

‘The 14th—A Whiff of Impermanence’

Illustration by MC

I think I have cracked what China wants out of the 14th Dalai Lama. They want his celebrity without its corporeal casing. If there was some way of distilling his enormous global celebrity and bottling it as a fragrance, they would happily do so. The might simply call it “The 14th—A Whiff of Impermanence”.

It seems to me that Beijing understands the market potential of the brand Dalai Lama. They want the brand and not the man. As The New York Times’ Andrew Jacobs reports, the Dalai Lama’s ancestral home, the place where he was born on July 6, 1935, has been upgraded in recent times along with the rest of 53 homes in Tengster village in northeastern Tibet, which is now known as Hong’ai.

Jacobs reports that the Chinese authorities spent 1.6 million renminbi (about $410,000) for the makeover to turn it into “a lucrative tourist attraction.” It is obvious that the compelling reason why Beijing has spent money on the village is because it is the Dalai Lama’s birthplace and can draw a large number of tourists.

When Lhamo Thondup left Tengster as a barely three-year-old boy on the verge of becoming the 14th Dalai Lama, the village was no more than a collection of very modest dwellings at the foot of Mount Kyeri. Here is how I describe his birthplace of Tengster in my book ‘Man Monk Mystic.’ Rather than using the text, I have used below an audio clip brilliantly narrated by Australian actor Paul English for the audio edition of the boom published by Bolinda.(What a swift segue and plug!)

 

David Coleman Headley and extradition

No matter how I slice and dice it, I am unable to see how India’s plan to compel the United States to extradite confessed key Mumbai terror plotter David Coleman Headley can succeed.

I am prompted to reexamine the case in light of an Indian court yesterday clearing the country’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) to indict Headley, who is now awaiting sentencing here in Chicago. I have written extensively about the case over the last two and half years since I am in the midst of writing a book about it.

There is no way for New Delhi to compel Washington to extradite Headley, an American citizen, without the attendant diplomatic unpleasantness. I am not sure even after that India will accomplish its goal of making Headley stand trial in the country. I reported the following on December 22 last year for the IANS wire. I am repeating it if only explain again why this is going to be a messy affair.

By Mayank Chhaya,Indo-Asian News Service

Chicago, December 22 (IANS): The decision by India's National Investigation Agency (NIA) to formally file charges against David Coleman Headley is unlikely to be of any material consequence for the convicted key Mumbai terror plotter is lodged in an undisclosed US prison.

Headley's extradition to face charges and stand trial in India was an option that US federal prosecutors had taken off the table as part of a deal in exchange for which he has already pleaded guilty on all 12 counts. He is currently awaiting formal sentencing which is expected to be handed down by a court in the US sometime in spring. Another plea deal condition that won the prosecutors a full guilty plea is that he will be spared the death sentence.

There are next to no prospects of Headley's plea deal being revoked to facilitate his extradition, particularly because he was seen to have met the condition of full cooperation during the trial and helped the prosecutors win the eventual conviction of his childhood friend and fellow accused Tahawwur Hussain Rana.

Although Rana survived conviction in connection with his alleged role in facilitating Headley's travels to Mumbai to scout targets, he was found guilty of helping a plot to attack a Danish newspaper's offices.

While official sources would not publicly comment on whether India can do anything to compel the US government to revoke the non-extradition condition, it is clear that the chances of that happening are practically non-existent.

Although the fact is that Rana was not found guilty of any involvement in the Mumbai terror strike case, something the prosecutors were rather unhappy about, it was hard to lay the blame for that failure solely on Headley. From all indications, Headley did cooperate with the authorities to the extent he was required to but in the end the prosecutors could not convince the jury.

There are no compelling grounds at this stage for the US authorities to renege on the plea deal that spared Headley his worst nightmare scenario of facing Indian investigators in India. While an NIA team did interrogate him in Chicago in June 2010, it was conducted in US controlled conditions and under many ground rules. Headley ought to be aware what it might mean to be lodged in Indian judicial custody and be subjected to interrogation by Indian investigators.

Another factor that may discourage US authorities from considering Headley's extradition may have to do with strong suspicions in India of his possible role as an informer of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) who went rogue. There is no predicting what Headley might tell Indian investigators about his life as a DEA informer in order to talk his way out of tight corners.

On balance, the perception in the US seems to be that the Headley case has run its course with him awaiting sentencing along with Rana. There is no particular interest in sending him to India to face the justice system there.

The death of six US citizens in the Mumbai attacks gave the US prosecutors enough legal leverage to subject him to the law of the land in the US rather than handing him over to India under the extradition treaty between the two countries. In any case, extradition of US citizens is a rare occurrence and is almost always discouraged.

With this as the backdrop, it is anybody's guess what Indian investigators might gain by formally charging Headley along with others, including the shadowy Major Iqbal, a suspected operative of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to whom Headley has admitted to have been reporting.
Perhaps the only person the NIA might be able to lay their hands on is Rana, who after pleading not guilty, was convicted earlier this year. There is no plea deal in place for Rana that precludes his extradition. However, the fact that he is a Canadian citizen, who is also a permanent citizen of the US, now waiting to be handed down his sentence which could be anywhere between 15 and 30 years, could complicate matters.

All others that the NIA seeks to charge are based in Pakistan and they were also named in the US indictment. If the US has been unable to bring them to justice here, it is unlikely that India would be able to compel Pakistan to send them there.

Unless the NIA is working out of some undisclosed arrangement with US authorities about Headley, the formal charges could turn out to be more symbolic than consequential.

--Indo-Asian News Service

“Who was he, where was he from, what happened to him?”

There is no point explaining some occurrences because explanation tends to destroy their mystique.

For instance, since yesterday morning a verse from a very popular ghazal (the video above) has been singing itself in my mind, which by itself is nothing unusual for me. I do that all the time. It goes : “Ta hadde nazar ek biyabaan sa kyun hai?” (Why does the wilderness stretch as far as the eye can see?)

The ghazal was “Seeney mein jalan, aankhon mein tufaan sa kyun hai?” by the hugely talented poet Shahryar. In fact, I was planning to put it on Facebook update this morning. What makes it unusual is just before that I discovered that Shahryar had died.

Born Akhlaq Mohammed Khan in 1936, he assumed his poetic name Shahryar in the fine tradition of Urdu poets.

Some verses have a way of escaping from their poetic confines and becoming maxims in themselves. “Ta hadde..” was one such. The line that precedes it and gives it an emotional context reads: “Tanhai ki yeh kaun se manzil hai rafiqon, Ta hadde…” (What destination of loneliness is this, friends? Why does the wilderness stretch as far as the eye can see?)

Other than listening to some of his songs hundreds of times over the years, one did not know much about Shahryar. I knew, of course, that was he was conferred India’s most prestigious literary honors, the Jnanpeeth in 2008, as well as the Sahitya Akademy award for his collection “Khwab ka dar band hai.” (‘The door to dreams is shut’).

While Shahryar remained deeply committed to Urdu literature throughout his life, he wrote for Hindi cinema sparingly because he could not adjust to the peculiar demands of the profession. Among his songs that captured the nation’s imagination, the standout collection is from his friend and collaborator, filmmaker Muzaffar Ali’s ‘Umrao Jaan.”

One definite marker of a great civilization is how easily its inhabitants remember and recite poetry. In many parts of India, it is hard to find someone who might not quote a verse or two in response to a challenging situation. It is poets like Shahryar who ensure that a great civilization does not lose its greatness.

Here is a frequently quoted verse by him.

Wo kaun tha, wo kahan ka tha, kya hua tha usey
Suna hai aaj koi shakhs mar gaya yaaron...

(Who was he, where was he from, what happened to him?

Heard someone died today..)

About Mitt Romney’s cavalier canine conduct

I feel great joy at having rediscovered nuances of the expression “People often ask me….” It is a charmingly deflective way of being opinionated without the burden of sounding opinionated. Or at least that’s what I think.

What it says is that far be it for me to consider myself so important as to express an opinion, but I do so only because “People often ask me…” The other day I started my post with it. I intend to make it an occasional practice. (I have already clarified that no one ever asks me anything).

So, people often ask me what I think of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney strapping his pet dog Seamus in a kennel on top of his car during a drive from Boston to Ontario, Canada in 1983. Pet lovers and not-so-pet lovers are reportedly outraged at Romney’s conduct which may have some mildly amusing political repercussions as he goes about seeking his party’s nomination. We do not yet whether this could terminally damage his prospects or merely provide a silly sideshow for a while.

Be that as it may (another expression I love for its nebulousness), I think the outrage is entirely a case of how consciously and not so consciously we have created a caste system among animals. What if Romney had strapped a wicker basket full of chickens atop his vehicle and driven the same route with feathers flying? Mind you, the chickens are meant for a feast on arrival. I doubt very much if pet lovers would be as outraged.

People love dogs because the animal responds mostly unselfishly to every human whim unlike chickens which do not seek to strike heartwarming relationships. They do not snuggle up to their owners or slobber over them. Ironically, unlike dogs, poor chickens even provide eggs which are consumed in a million different ways. Dogs only poop which their owners have to bag.

Would people be similarly outraged if a bunch of mice was ferried in a cage on top of a car? I seriously doubt it. And how about a jar full of cockroaches or box full of skunks?

The point is pet lovers follow an unconscious caste system which is inherently discriminatory. I understand that one cannot be emotional about all sentient beings but the least one could do is not to turn certain species into deities.

Animals are not born to be domesticated to the extent humans have done in certain cases such the horse or the cow or the dog or even the chicken and the pig. And if we do indeed insist on domesticating them, let’s not pretend that they cease being animals. We do so purely out of utilitarian reasons.

If you still do not know where I stand on Romney’s cavalier canine conduct (a terrible mixed metaphor), then get in the line. Even I do not quite know what I am saying. I am saying it because people often ask me.